Arthur Penn | |
|---|---|
 Penn at the 2007Berlin International Film Festival | |
| Born | Arthur Hiller Penn (1922-09-27)September 27, 1922 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | September 28, 2010(2010-09-28) (aged 88) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Director, producer |
| Spouse | (1931-2012) |
| Children | 2, includingMatthew |
| Family | Irving Penn (elder brother) |
Arthur Hiller Penn (September 27, 1922 – September 28, 2010) was an American filmmaker, theatre director, and producer. He was a three-timeAcademy Award nominee forBest Director, and aTony Award winner. Among other accolades, he was also nominated for aBAFTA Award, aGolden Globe and twoPrimetime Emmy Awards.
Penn’s first achieved prominence as a theatre director, winning a Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play forThe Miracle Worker. He received similar acclaim and his first Oscar nomination for directing the1962 film adaptation. His 1967 filmBonnie and Clyde is credited with initiating theNew Hollywood movement, by infusing the biographical crime drama with a counterculture sensibility.[1] He achieved similar critical and commercial success directing the comedyAlice's Restaurant (1969) and the revisionist WesternLittle Big Man (1970), which further reflected that ethos.
Penn’s other notable films included the neo-noirNight Moves (1975) and the revisionist WesternThe Missouri Breaks (1976). In the 1990s, he returned to stage and television direction and production, including an executive producer role for the police procedural seriesLaw & Order.[2] By his death in 2010, Penn was the recipient of several honorary accolades, including anHonorary Golden Bear, aTony Award, and an Akira Kurosawa Award from theSan Francisco International Film Festival.
Penn was born in 1922, to a Russian Jewish family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Sonia (Greenberg), a nurse, and Harry (Tzvi) William Penn, a watchmaker, both natives of then Novoaleksandrovsk, Russia, nowZarasai, Lithuania.[3][4] He was the younger brother ofIrving Penn, the fashion, portrait and still life photographer. During his early years, he moved in with his mother after she divorced his father. Some time after, he came back to his sickly father, leading him to run his father's watch repair shop. At 19, he was drafted into theUnited States Army duringWorld War II (1943–1946), serving as an infantryman in theBattle of the Bulge.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11] While stationed in Britain, he became interested in theater. He started to direct and take part in shows being put on for the soldiers around England at the time.[10] As Penn grew up, he became increasingly interested in film, especially after seeing theOrson Welles filmCitizen Kane.[citation needed] He later attendedBlack Mountain College in North Carolina. As a student there he directed a production ofErik Satie's 1913 play The Ruse of Medusa (Le piège de Méduse) withR. Buckminster Fuller,Elaine de Kooning, andMerce Cunningham performing,[12] and he was a featured commentator in the documentaryFully Awake about the college.[13]
After making a name for himself as a director of quality television dramas, Penn made his feature debut withThe Left Handed Gun (1958) forWarner Brothers. A retelling of theBilly the Kid legend, it was distinguished byPaul Newman's portrayal of the outlaw as a psychologically troubled youth (the role was originally intended forJames Dean). The production was completed in only 23 days, but Warner Brothers reedited the film against his wishes with a new ending he disapproved of. The film failed upon release in North America, but was well received in Europe.[14]
Penn's second film wasThe Miracle Worker (1962), the story ofAnne Sullivan's struggle to teach the blind and deafHelen Keller how to communicate. It garnered two Academy Awards for its leadsAnne Bancroft andPatty Duke. Penn had won aTony Award for directing the stage production, written byWilliam Gibson, also starring Bancroft and Duke,[15] and he had directed Bancroft's Broadway debut in playwright Gibson's first Broadway production,Two for the Seesaw.[4]
Penn began working onThe Train in France in June and August 1963 when starBurt Lancaster had Penn fired after three days of Penn's filming[16] and called onJohn Frankenheimer to take over the film.[4]
In 1965 Penn directedMickey One. Heavily influenced by theFrench New Wave, it was the dreamlike story of a standup comedian (played byWarren Beatty) on the run from sinister, ambiguous forces. In 2010, Penn commented: "You know, you could not have gone through the Second World War with all that nonsense with Russia being an ally and then being the big black monster. It was an absurd time.The McCarthy period was ridiculous and humiliating, deeply humiliating. When I finally did 'Mickey One', it was in repudiation of the kind of fear that overtook free people to the point where they were telling on each other and afraid to speak out. It just astonished me, really astonished me. I mean, I was a vet, so it was nothing like what we thought we were fighting for."[17]
Penn's next film wasThe Chase (1966) a thriller following events in a small corrupt Southern town on the day an escaped convict, played byRobert Redford, returns. Penn was excluded from the post-production process, which was instead overseen by producerSam Spiegel.[4] However, the film was still praised by critics, withDave Kehr later calling it one of Penn's "most personal and feverishly creative works".[4] Also that year, he directed the stage version of the thrillerWait Until Dark starringLee Remick andRobert Duvall.[4]
He reunited with Warren Beatty for the gangster filmBonnie and Clyde (1967). The film went on to become a worldwide phenomenon. It was strongly influenced by the French New Wave and itself went on to make a huge impression on a younger generation of filmmakers. Indeed, there was a strong resurgence in the "love on the run" subgenre in the wake ofBonnie and Clyde, peaking withBadlands (1973; in which Penn received acknowledgement in the credits). Beatty had given him 10% of the potential profits of the film before production started and the success of the film earned Penn over $2 million.[18]
At the time he had completedBonnie and Clyde, Penn was residing in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, when he heard a story of a large-scale littering incident that had happened in the town two years prior. He contactedArlo Guthrie, received permission to adapt his song "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" into a film, and secured Guthrie's participation as well as several other Stockbridge town residents while filming in many of the same locations where the events took place. The filmAlice's Restaurant was released in 1969.[19] Guthrie later stated in 2023 that he was angered by the film, believing Penn and his co-writer had come to a fundamentally wrong conclusion about whether or not hippie values were still relevant, and had walked out of the film's premiere;[20]Alice Brock and Richard Robbins, who were also portrayed in the film, were similarly offended.[21][22]
Penn followed upAlice's Restaurant in 1970 withLittle Big Man, a "shaggy dog" account of the life of a white man (played byDustin Hoffman) who gets adopted into theCheyenne tribe.[4] In 1973 Penn provided a segment for a promotional film for the Olympics titledVisions of Eight along with several other major directors such asJohn Schlesinger andMiloš Forman. His next film wasNight Moves (1975) about a private detective (played byGene Hackman) on the trail of a runaway. Next cameThe Missouri Breaks (1976), a ramshackle, eccentric story of a horse thief (Jack Nicholson) facing off with an eccentric bounty hunter (played byMarlon Brando).[4]
In the 1980s, Penn's career began to lose its momentum with critics and audiences.Four Friends (1981) was a traumatic look back at the 1960s.Target (1985) was a mainstream thriller reuniting the director withGene Hackman, andDead of Winter (1987) was a horror/thriller.[23] Subsequently, Penn returned to work in television, including as an executive producer for the crime seriesLaw & Order.[4]
Penn maintained an affiliation with Yale University, occasionally teaching classes there.[24]
In 1955, he married actress Peggy Maurer. They had two children: sonMatthew Penn and daughter, Molly Penn.[4]
Penn became friends withAlger Hiss during the production ofMickey One, saying in a 2010 interview, "Alger got married here in my apartment. And so I became more of a student of the Hiss period than I knew what to do with, frankly".[17]
Penn died fromcongestive heart failure at his home in Manhattan on September 28, 2010, the day after his 88th birthday.[4]
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1958 | Two for the Seesaw | nominated–Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play |
| 1959 | The Miracle Worker | Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play |
| 1960 | An Evening withMike Nichols andElaine May | |
| All the Way Home | nominated–Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play | |
| Toys in the Attic | ||
| 1962 | In the Courting House | |
| 1963 | Lorenzo | |
| 1964 | Golden Boy | |
| 1966 | Wait Until Dark | |
| 1976 | Sly Fox | |
| 1977 | Golda | |
| 1982 | Monday After the Miracle | |
| 2000 | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? | |
| 2002 | Fortune's Fool |
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1953 | Gulf Playhouse | 7 episodes |
| 1953–1955 | Goodyear Television Playhouse | 6 episodes |
| The Philco Television Playhouse | 11 episodes | |
| 1954 | Justice | episode: "Man on the Hunt" |
| 1954–1955 | Producers' Showcase | 2 episodes |
| 1955–1956 | Playwrights '56 | 7 episodes |
| 1957–1958 | Playhouse 90 | 5 episodes nominated–Primetime Emmy Award for Best Direction – One Hour |
| 1968 | Flesh and Blood | TV movie |
| 1993 | The Portrait | TV movie |
| 1996 | Inside | TV movie |
| 2000–2001 | Law & Order | executive producer – 13 episodes nominated–Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series |
| 2001 | 100 Centre Street | episode: "The Fix" |
| Year | Title | Academy Awards | BAFTA Awards | Golden Globe Awards | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | ||
| 1962 | The Miracle Worker | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| 1967 | Bonnie and Clyde | 10 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 7 | |
| 1969 | Alice's Restaurant | 1 | 1 | ||||
| 1970 | Little Big Man | 1 | 3 | 1 | |||
| 1975 | Night Moves | 1 | |||||
| 1981 | Four Friends | 1 | |||||
| Total | 17 | 4 | 11 | 2 | 13 | 1 | |
Oscar-related Performance
Under Penn's directions, these actors have receivedOscar nominations and wins for their performances in these respective roles.
| Year | Performer | Feature Film | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Award for Best Actor | |||
| 1968 | Warren Beatty | Bonnie and Clyde | Nominated |
| Academy Award for Best Actress | |||
| 1963 | Anne Bancroft | The Miracle Worker | Won |
| 1968 | Faye Dunaway | Bonnie and Clyde | Nominated |
| Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor | |||
| 1968 | Gene Hackman | Bonnie and Clyde | Nominated |
| Michael J. Pollard | Nominated | ||
| 1971 | Chief Dan George | Little Big Man | Nominated |
| Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress | |||
| 1963 | Patty Duke | The Miracle Worker | Won |
| 1968 | Estelle Parsons | Bonnie and Clyde | Won |
Metadata
| Preceded by | Artistic Director of theActors Studio 1995–1998 | Succeeded by |
